Sons of the Big Three

Deathball

Disclaimer: So I don’t own things. I only love Artemis, Athena and Hestia.

Nick: (Smirks)

Me: Shut up!

Will’s POV

So as soon as we got into the field Annabeth glared at me and I walked over to her meekly and timidly, causing Nick and Desmond to laugh.

Annabeth switched her looks to them. ‘You can keep laughing if you want to be the next ones,’ she warned, and they shut up immediately. I smiled a little, but I was too busy wondering what Annabeth had planned for me.

It wouldn’t be good, I knew that, and I prayed to the gods that it wasn’t going to hurt too much, although judging by the way Percy had clapped my shoulders when we had left, it was almost like he was going to be seeing me alive for the last time.

Shut up, shut up, I told myself. ‘Now, Will, I want you to use this today,’ Annabeth threw me a dagger which I just caught from entering my head, and she smiled sweetly, and I shivered. ‘I’m going to be teaching you the art of dagger and knife fighting.’

I sighed in relief as I shifted into my stance. ‘That’s all?’

Percy groaned and shook his head. ‘He is about to die,’ he stage whispered and the others laughed. Annabeth whirled about and gave him a look and he gulped. ‘Well, Nick and Desmond, show me how your fighting skills are progressing.’

My two cousins started to fight while Percy watched them and gave them pointers. ‘Now, Will, I want you to know that knife fighting is difficult. Knives are only for the bravest and quickest fighters. They don’t have the reach or the power of a sword, but they are easy to conceal and can find weak points in the enemies armour. It takes a clever warrior to use the knife to the best, and it takes a good warrior to be able to adapt.’

I stared at her, processing the words, when she leaped into action, lunging forward, and I took a step back and tried to block, but the dagger was lighter and smaller than my Stygian Iron Blade. She twisted around and wrenched my arm behind my back, one hand holding it while the other held her own dagger at my throat. Her hand holding my arm twisted painfully so all I could do was gasp and not move.

‘By working your instincts, reflexes and flexibility knife fighters sometimes have the greatest advantage of all; they can get in closer and do things easier. A knife user needs to be able to adapt to the situation and use everything to their advantage and use their opponents disadvantage wisely.’ Annabeth demonstrated her point by kicking my legs out from under me and I landed on the ground, face up, and she had her knee on my chest and the other holding my head down, her dagger still at my throat.

‘It takes a smart person to use daggers well,’ she continued, eyeing me critically. ‘I do not recommend daggers for most people, especially if I think they do not have the right speed, the right thinking, and most importantly, they don’t have any versatility.’

Her intense stare held me for hours. Okay, fine it was ten seconds, but I shivered from what it transmitted from it. It showed responsibility, fierceness, but also of promise, and of unexpected pain, which I had no idea where it came from.

Finally, to my gratitude, she stood and held a hand out to me, and I managed to grab it. ‘But I think you will be a good person to teach. I’ve seen you before, and although you aren’t as quick as Percy or Nick, you are quick enough but have the brains to adapt and think.’

‘Hey,’ the two sons of Poseidon complained, and Annabeth giggled while I stuck my tongue out at them.

‘And the added bonus is that you have shadow travelling. With that, you can become something of an assassin, or I think the term authors use is a “knife in the shadows”, which I think is aptly named for you.’